Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday April 23, 2012 @10:43AM
from the shut-it-down dept.

vivIsel writes "This morning, President Obama is set to unveil a new executive order that will allow the U.S. to specifically target sanctions against individuals, companies or countries who use technology to enable human rights abuse. Especially as repressive regimes more effectively monitor their dissidents online (rather than simply blocking access), the sanctions focus on companies that help them do that."

Sorry, i dont understand your points. Are you suggesting that mearly commenting on a chat board implies freedom? Or are you suggesting that the NSA has ONLY harvested this information and added my dissidence to its profile on me, and not used it against me YET, is a form of freedom?

Freedom is freedom FROM government, not freedom OF government.

Critisism of ones government does not imply freedom, nor necessarily its ability to act against you... Yet.

it's not democracy, or republic, and far away from fascism yet. i prefer to call it "elected dictatorship". you elect a group of people to rule you dictatorially for few years, while ensuring whoever succeeds them, will have the same agenda.

A) "the powers that be" are the people of the US. Those are the people that benefit from the current system and refuse to change it. Why do you think social security is such a mess?

B) people "eat it up" because they agree with it. The people who call social security reformers 'crazy'? They're social security recipients (and no one else.. because only those who receive social security care enough about it to say anything.)

Politicians lie.. and people on their side think it's ok because it will advance their

If you don't like the morons in office, then why do you (we) keep putting them into office?

Probably because A) anytime someone runs for office on the platform of challenging the status quo, the powers that be immediately assault them by calling them 'crazy,' and B) the ignorant masses eat such marginalizations up like high-fructose corn syrup.

Or C) Candidates feel free to lie about what they're going to do in representing their electorate, and promptly forget about their promises once elected, and the electorate let them get away with that (or have no power to change this).

We need term limits and easy recall ("You're fired!") for all politicians.

And "None of the above" should be used as a write in candidate *much* more often, and should be accepted as valid by the authorities. People ought to read more L. Neil Smith.

Spit it out. It's (so far, dependant upon who you are) a "benevolent dictatorship", with *a lot* of the stink of fascism. They just haven't bothered to come for you yet. That "benevolent" bit can change in a heart beat however. Keep watching.

This is turning out to be a very interesting century (as in the Chinese curse - "May you live in interesting times").

Says the guy willfully ignorant of the fact that the U.S. has had innocent people kidnapped, tortured, [salon.com] or killed: [cnn.com]

The prime minister of Canada apologized Friday to Maher Arar and agreed to give $9 million in compensation to the Canadian Arab, who was spirited by U.S. agents to Syria and tortured there after being falsely named as a terrorism suspect.

Arar, 36, a former computer engineer who was detained while changing planes at a New York airport in 2002 and imprisoned in a Syrian dungeon for 10 months, said

Are you really comparing the killing of one man, on foreign soil, conspiring with and surrounded by enemies of this country, who had openly declared war on the country and was actively trying to find ways to kill as many Americans as possible with the hanging of hundreds or thousands of men in the streets found guilty of being homosexuals?

See, this is the kind of moral equivalence bullshit you guys pull all the time and it really makes you look seriously mathematically challenged at best. You truly see the

Are you really expecting your fake outrage and filibustering to fly here? The Federal Government targeted an American citizen for execution without bothering to even indict him. Which alternates between insisting that no one should question this killing because there was so much evidence that he was a bad guy, and then refusing to give a shred of said evidence when pressed to do so.

Then you uncritically accept their storyline without bothering to cite anythi

In the 1990s sanctions against Iraq caused 1 million people to starve to death (the Secretary of State acknowledged that stat to be true, but she said it was necessary), and led to 9/11. Now we are going to starve another million Syrians and Iranians. Knocking off innocent people is a perfect way to provoke anger & spark a war.

In the 1990s sanctions against Iraq caused 1 million people to starve to death

No, Saddam Hussein caused every single one of those people to starve to death. Not least by diverting the aid meant for them, but in general by never honoring the commitments he made when he was being pushed back from his invasion of Kuwait. His regime was sanctioned because of its conduct. His people were offered food and other support, but he prevented that from being used well or at all. His continued actions in that regard were part of what motivated his final ouster from power, as eventually even the

Do you think you could come up with a list of foreign governments that you think are actually responsible for their own behavior, and that of their country? Are there any that have even a smidgen of influence over the activities within their borders? Or is everything the fault of the United States? The mass starvation in North Korea? The slaughter in Syria? The dreams of regional hegemony and genocidal inclinations of Iran? Do the leaders of these countries have their own dreams, their own goals? Ar

Strawman argument. I never said the U.S. is responsible for "all" the bad things in the world..... only those countries where blood is very clearly on its hands. Such as the blatant slaughter (or maiming) of 1 million Iraqis, half-a-million Afghanis, and who knows how many victims of our Yemen and Libyan bombings.

Maybe we ought to find a better solution than going-round and murdering our neighbors. The amount of corpses the U.S. has created in the last two decades would create a mound higher than most bu

James Risen published highly classified materials. He is not under criminal threat for anything other than failure to obey a court order to reveal sources. One can argue how strongly or not strongly the government should protect journalists who assist espionage, balancing national security against the public's write to know. That is far far different than not having a free society.

Similarly with wikileaks spokespeople. The USA does absolutely nothing to people who are outside the mainstream. You can re

Actually it does demonstrate the problem with your logic that the law shouldn't apply when other people have broken the law.

These examples are of people treated like political prisoners, without the issuance of warrants or the exercise of due process.

No they aren't. These are people are being treated much more lightly than americans accused of assisting espionage and the possible criminal components of it. Issues involving intelligence operations are handled via. the congressional committees not the pu

I get what you (and a bunch of ACs or one really bored AC apparently) are saying, but I think the argument is going to be a hard sell when you're forced to recognize the categorical difference between the technocratic repression of a modern megastate and the repression of shelling cities where resistance is detected.

That said, there's another powerful argument as to our hypocrisy, which is the double standard we hold our allies to versus these states we sanction.

What would the US government's response be if a small (or a significant) portion of the population resisted/rebelled against the government?

Well, the Whiskey Rebellion [wikipedia.org] was put down with violence. If you say that that doesn't count because the US is democratic, well, especially early on, the US was not very democratic, and that was a feature, not a bug. In fact, it was sort of like Syria, or Iran today, with elections, but also with features designed to perpetuate an existing ruling establishment.

Second, take the Civil War, put down with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and then probable war crimes [wikipedia.org]. Is Syria's war not a war between two factions in the same country, i.e., a civil war? Would Washington have taken kindly to London helping the Confederate States of America [wikipedia.org]?

Finally, take the Occupy Wall Street movement, also put down violently. If Egypt had cleared out Tahrir Square claiming "health code violations", most international media would have laughed. But, in New York, it was done with a straight face.

What would the US government's response be if a small (or a significant) portion of the population resisted/rebelled against the government?

Depends what form the resistance takes. There's a fairly large portion of the population actively resisting US policy of one kind or another, and there's a small bug significant portion of the population preparing for revolution of one kind or another. Since these are mostly impotent threats to the status quo, they're largely ignored, but with some repression to remind the resisters what the state is capable of.

Well, the Whiskey Rebellion [wikipedia.org] was put down with violence. If you say that that doesn't count because the US is democratic, well, especially early on, the US was not very democratic, and that was a feature, not a bug. [snip]

Second, take the Civil War, put down with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and then probable war crimes [wikipedia.org].

You'll note that in neither of these cases was the US a "modern megastate" which employed "techno

I don't understand why the replies I'm getting seem to treat me like I think the US gov't is all sunshine and daisies. Yes, it is brutal. It is far, far more brutal than any odd dictatorship. All the more reason for us to sharpen our arguments.

Waco is a good example of what happens when the state perceives a genuine threat, even just out of pure paranoia. That is an example of "it always reserves the opportunity to drop the other boot". But it's also an outlier in terms of typical internal US behavior.

Waco was an example of a group that had shot 4 federal agents trying to administer a court order and then refused to surrender. You don't have the right to violently resist police enforcement. You comply and after the fact sue if there were civil rights violations.

I don't understand why the replies I'm getting seem to treat me like I think the US gov't is all sunshine and daisies.

Maybe because you're being overly literal. The point of making analogies other comparisons isn't to say two things are identical, but to, you know, compare them where they are comparable.

In other words, you are sounding the like sort of person who hears a comparison between the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam and proceed to spend your time complaining that there is no draft, jungle, or comm

You think distinguishing between shelling cities and listening to phone calls is "overly literal"?

No, I think that's exactly the sort of quibbling I was talking about. Nobody is saying the U.S. military is shelling American cities, so I'm not sure just why you're stuck on that point. Yes, we really are aware there are no communists in Afghanistan, thank you.

I want to win the argument against US malfeasance, not to defend the US government.

I didn't say anyone is. I'm objecting to drawing parallels between US repression like domestic wiretapping (and other violations of civil liberties) with Syrian repression which is much more severe than the examples of US repression used by the posters I responded to. Here are the comments I was responding to:

I didn't say anyone is. I'm objecting to drawing parallels between US repression like domestic wiretapping (and other violations of civil liberties) with Syrian repression which is much more severe than the examples of US repression used by the posters I responded to . Here are the comments I was responding to:

I looked all all of the comments you linked to. How many engaged in the overarching, 1:1 comparisons you seem to be objecting to?

I looked all all of the comments you linked to. How many engaged in the overarching, 1:1 comparisons you seem to be objecting to?

Zero.

This is ridiculous. Each one of them is explicitly making a comparison to Syrian repression. The Syrian repression is the context and the object of the accusation of hypocrisy. Is it "1:1"? No comparison is "1:1".

"Now if only they'd use that on the TSA"How is the TSA engaged in repression like Syria, to warrant this comparison? Yes, TSA does engage in repression, but it's fundamentally different from that of Syria.

You're really this intellectually lazy? Hand waving and 7 word tautologies do not an argument make.

were not simply "peaceful protesters", they were also squatters.

Nonsense. What unoccupied dwellings were they located in for the purpose of residency? See also, the First Amendment: [wikipedia.org]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

Arguing with someone who thinks that the Occupy xxx protests and the Tahrir Square protests were similar beyond being a bunch of dissatisfied people seems like a waste of time, and in that regard yes I'm being lazy.

What unoccupied dwellings were they located in for the purpose of residency?

Tents aren't "dwellings"? How about you discuss the gist of my argument instead of arguing about whether my use of the word "squatter" is appropriate? They were living in the park(s), not simply "protesting" - that is the important distinction I was trying to make.

Arguing with someone who thinks that the Occupy xxx protests and the Tahrir Square protests were similar beyond being a bunch of dissatisfied people seems like a waste of time, and in that regard yes I'm being lazy.

I have no problem with the evictions, only with the methods used in some of the cities.

The use of tear gas against peaceful protesters?

Agreed that tear gas is out of bounds. It's not deadly force however.

The mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful protesters?

They got away with violating local laws for months before they were arrested. I'd say people were extremely lenient for the most part with the Occupy xxx protesters, only breaking it up when it had lost any semblance of momentum or purpose.

The many acts of police brutality against peaceful protesters?

Many is a weasel word. Document the brutality. I can count the really outrageous stuff on one hand, though the Oakla

The government may place restrictions on the right to assemble that will maintain law and order, facilitate traffic, protect private property and reduce noise congestion. It does not guarantee freedom of assembly wherever and whenever you want to assemble. It also does not guarantee total free speech - yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and all that. Do some very basic reading before you lecture me on the first amen

You are wrong here. The incident where the NYC cops used the pepper spray on the girls was during an operation where they were trying to keep people on the sidewalk and off of the street with orange snowfence - the "barricades".

reduce noise congestion

Irrelevant to the Wall Street protests. Also hilarious, given the use of LRAD audio cannons to break up the protests. You were saying?

So law enforcement tools should be chosen not based on effectiveness of the technique, but on how hypocritical the method might sound to Uberbah? I'm going to disagree with you there. If a guy is using a weapon in a crime I have no problem with the police also using a we

No, not exactly. Unless you are referring to some past conversation which only took place inside your head.

You are wrong here. The incident where the NYC cops used the pepper spray on the girls was during an operation where they were trying to keep people on the sidewalk and off of the street with orange snowfence - the "barricades".

According to the same police commissioner responsible for cracking down on the protests when he's not busy spying on hundreds of people for suspicion of not being

No, not exactly. Unless you are referring to some past conversation which only took place inside your head.

Are you just trolling me? LOL. From our conversation:

Over 600 dead in Egypt. Thousands of terrible injuries, including gunshot wounds. Arrests were for whatever the police felt like and people, including journalists, were held without charge, in secret, and tortured by the regime. The entire duration of the protests were met with violent resistance by the regime, with dramatic running battles. The protestors had many and varied demands, but all coalesced around a single common one: Mubarak had to go. Once h

The fact of something being less harmful that that which is far worse, doesn't lessen the fact that it's harmful.

So, to your moral compass, the actions of a single cop (or even group of cops) working for a single local government represents the same thing as a state system of coordinated violence directed by an unelected despot?

The existence of an unelected despot is an abusive cop's best defense? Buh?

Not what I said. A cop that busts a peaceful man's head open has no defense.

Occupy xxx (which one are you talking about anyway?) were not simply "peaceful protesters", they were also squatters. In NYC, there were a few incidents where cops used disproportionate force. In Egypt, meanwhile, there were running battles between agents of the state and protesters. Not only are these events different, they are on polar ends of a scale.

Let me ask you something: when it comes time to remove people from a place where

I'll come right out and suggest that this is because it would lead you to an uncomfortable conclusion.

How about your own couch. There's a guy on your own couch. He refuses to leave. Yes, someone living on your own couch is different from someone living in your community's park - but really the two situations lie on the same continuum. I think a community has a right to set rules in their own park just as you have a right to set rules on your own couch. Obviously, these rules must be limited - you cannot say

Why is trespassing peacefully on your coach a crime, but disobeying some local ordinance not? What if they just camped out on the little strip of municipal property between the street and your lawn?

"more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, bank reform, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics."

Who the hell would argue with those goals? They had absolutely no demand as to how to accomplish those things. More and better jobs! Great! Let's get started! There was no way to satisfy the protests, because they had no concrete endgame. Did they have some unemployment number that would end the protest? No.

Second, take the Civil War, put down with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and then probable war crimes [wikipedia.org]. Is Syria's war not a war between two factions in the same country, i.e., a civil war? Would Washington have taken kindly to London helping the Confederate States of America [wikipedia.org]?

Nice moral equivalency shenanigans, there. The US South was defending the indefensible, and the Baathis regime in Syria is defending the indefensible. Your attempt to flip things around backwards is (or should be understood to be, if you're paying attention) embarassingly lacking in a moral compass and any sort of intellectual integrity.

Finally, take the Occupy Wall Street movement, also put down violently.

Oh, please. They were completely indulged at every turn, and completely abused their fellow citizens' patience as they squatted on public property that was not theirs to e

I had friends at Tahrir square. After they were arrested they were sent to jail for extended periods of time. At occupy they were mainly out within 24 hours with minor fines. In Syria the police are clearing the square with thousands of deaths. In the USA were are upset someone got hit and hospitalized and a few people got hit with tear gas.

We have problems but they are orders of magnitude different. And as an aside, London did assist the Confederate States

Sometimes the government will order others to do things on its behalf, and sometimes, these things may fall on its ass. No one will listen to the government if there's a chance that they can get sued for following orders, so the government can do things such as limit liabilities or to assume the liabilities resulting from these actions. If the government wants to spy, it has to have the telcos comply so the government will provide retroactive immunity. If the government wants airplanes made, it wouldn't do

"a new executive order that will allow the U.S. to specifically target sanctions against individuals, companies or countries who use technology to enable human rights abuse"

Good, start directly with yourselves, US Gov't. You're one of the worst offenders on this fucking planet.

This kind of ignorance is what keeps mass-murder from happening across the world. Does the US government have its share of problems? Heck yeah. Is it reasonable to compare it to what is going on in Iran and Syria? Far from it.

The next time civilians get gunned down systematically by our government on a daily basis you can bring up this point. Until then, leave politics at home and allow us to save lives.

It is far more dangerous that we are seeing an increase in executive order being the rule of law than the content of those orders whether justifiable or not. What little influence we have as voters is nullified by this side-stepping of congress and our system of government, however flawed it may be.

We'll know they're serious when the President repeals the National State of Emergency [wikipedia.org] that we have been in since September 2001. It has to be renewed every year and it has been renewed every year. The SoE grants the Executive Branch several hundred additional powers reserved for a state of emergency.

Is that the U.S. or European company that manufactures the products? Oh, no. They don't sell to customers in embargoed countries! Hold on a sec. I see a large order of "corporate internet filtering" products for shipment to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain that needs attention. Amazing how much tech stuff those guys use!

Where was I? Oh, yes. Those nasty gray-market distributors. You know, the shell companies incorporated a couple of months ago? Yeah. Those guys are ruining it for everyone!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a large order of CALEA equipment for delivery to U.S. telecom firms to ship out. Between that and the systems on order by the U.K. and China the bonuses should be fat again this quarter!

Like I said, not exhaustive... Iraq should be there near the bottom again, unless you account for the fact that the US has maintained a military presence there since the invasion of Kuwait... Gulf War II is just Gulf War I: The Sequel much like Kill Bill Volume 2 is the sequel to Kill Bill Vol. 1.

We're already sanctioning Iran because they will take Euros or Yen for oil.

The Europeans, like the US, say that they are sanctioning Iran due to its outlaw nuclear program. But lets go with what you assert, that it is about dollars versus euros. So are the Europeans sanctioning Iran [bloomberg.com] because they take Euros for oil too? Wouldn't that be kind of stupid for the Europeans to do, to punish Iran for accepting their currency to pay for oil? And that's what you claim? Shouldn't they be punishing the Iranians for accepting their currency for other goods besides oil too? Or do they th

You seem to have mistaken me for some caricature you have built in your mind. I have never in my entire life said the US invaded countries to get cheap oil - that is your narrative, not mine, my friend.

I don't know why people believe such illogical things, but reducing the supply of something never makes it cheaper, and turning a major oilfield into a series of flaming holes always reduces the supply of oil. Did you think Bush fils and pere were both unfamiliar with basic economics? Did you think their T

In Palestine, HP is deeply involved with the Israeli occupation. HP develops and profits from population-control systems that assist the Israeli government in the restriction of Palestinian movement, ethnic-based discrimination and segregation, and human rights violations.

"Through its subsidiary EDS Israel, HP is the prime contractor of the Basel system, an automated biometric access control system installed and maintained by HP in checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).

Another control mechanism HP is involved in is Israel's ID card system, which reflects and reinforces its political and economic asymmetries and tiered citizenship structure. HP will manufacture biometric ID cards for the citizens and residents of Israel (Jewish and Palestinians) for the Israeli Ministry of Interior. In addition, HP also provides services and technologies to the Israeli army.

Furthermore, two of HP's technological services providers in Israel are Matrix and its subsidiary, Tact Testware, which are located in the illegal West Bank settlement of Modi'in Illit. HP is also taking part in the "Smart city" project in the illegal West Bank settlement of Ariel, providing a storage system for the settlement's municipality."

The reason is simple too. They aren't. They have played the role of terrorist for so long now Americans find it difficult to separate the words Palestinian and terrorist. To be honest, the Palestinians have never given the world any reason to separate the two words either. No reasonable person believes that they want to be anything more than terrorists. If it walks, quacks and shits like a duck... it's a duck.

When the Saudi, Bahraini or Qatari governments buy "mass-surveillance technology" by the million-load, that lets them spy on all of their citizens, its perfectly "OK". After all, the Saudis provide the U.S. with cheap oil, Bahrain is another important oil-producer, and the Qataris provide military bases from which the U.S. can launch convenient wars against "rogue states" like Iraq. But when Iran & Syria do the exact same thing - buying snooping gear from the free market to keep their population in check - they are suddenly "evil", and "decisive sanctions" have to be imposed on them, and the companies. ------ Obama, either be fair and impose those sanctions on ALL surveillance tech vendors and ALL of their middle eastern clients (and perhaps the U.S. too?), or give your Nobel Peace Prize back, and let someone take office who isn't such a "double standards wielding" hypocrit. ------- The best solution to all of this would be to ban the creation, marketing and selling of mass-surveillance systems across the entire world. But where is the leader-class that could pull this off? Nowhere. The politicians who currently lead the "free world" seem to be far too fascinated by being able to "listen to" and "track" everybody within their state borders, to ever think about abolishing this practice in the first place.

But when Iran & Syria do the exact same thing - buying snooping gear from the free market to keep their population in check - they are suddenly "evil"

No, I'm afraid you are quite wrong there, Syria and Iran have been evil regimes for quite some time. The 1982 Hama massacre [abovetopsecret.com] is a good taste of what the Syrian regime is capable of. It also serves as an example of what the Arab & Muslim world will tolerate in silence, but when an Israeli soldier kills one Palestinian Arab suicide bomber it is decried as a massacre and war crime. Iran has long practiced state sponsored terrorism [cfr.org].

TSA, NDAA, Executive Orders his inside circle buddies of Corzine of MF Global fame I could go on and on.

Human Rights Abuses Indeed, Obama should look out his WH window.

-Hack

PS: Oh, and just as a closing point. If you think gun sales are hot now, wait till Romney and his cohorts get into office. TSA will need every single one of those Hollow Point bullets....at last count, over 200 Million ordered for delivery....right between the eyes of every man women and child in USA.

We're doing it for the right reasons, and they are doing it for the wrong reasons. See, when we do it, it is to catch people who do not support our government or who might try to start a revolution, or to track and arrest people who do things the government declares to be immoral. When they do it, it is to stay in power and promote state sponsored religion.

The US government is using surveillance on people in direct contact with terrorist* organizations to stop people who want to do things like fly planes into buildings for mass slaughter and detonate bombs in crowds for mass slaughter. The Syrian government is using surveillance and mass slaughter to prevent free and fair elections. The difference is clear as the difference between night and day.

For the uninformed - this is the sort of regime that runs Syria, and what it is capable of doing to its own citie

Everything the parent AC listed has actually happened. So stop blabbering on about hyperbole and start catching up on your Greenwald: [salon.com]

Practices once denounced by the U.S. as the hallmark of tyranny are now so normalized they barely register notice

Each year, the U.S. State Department, as required by law, issues a "Human Rights Report" which details abuses by other countries. To call it an exercise in hypocrisy is to understate the case: it is almost impossible to find any tyrannical power denounced by the

Yes, all aimed at Al Qaeda and its affiliates that are making war against the United States, and legal under the law of war. The US Congress passed the laws behind them, as well as the Authorization for Use of Military Force [findlaw.com]. Al Qaeda is no longer being handled as a purely law enforcement problem. Bin Laden, as head of Al Qaeda, declared war on the US and launched attacks. The US is responding in kind. Not hard to understand.

You should probably see a doctor. You don't sound well. Of course you'll do

Yes, except that's a big pile of police state apologist bullshit with no basis in reality.

If we are "at war" with Al Queda, then how many captured Al Queda operatives have been treated as prisoners of war? The Constitution clearly states that habeas corpus may only be suspended in times of invasion or rebellion, making the NDAA and military detention flatly unconstitutional. The AUMF only applies to the people who actually attacked us on 911, not everyone we point a finger at ten years later and call them